A Complaint Biography

This summer, I read Sara Ahmed's No!: The Art and Activism of Complaining. Ahmed has written some wonderful work in the past and her concept of feminist killjoys (those of us not made happy by what those in power expect will make us happy) greatly aligns with what this blog stands for and was based on. In No!, Ahmed talks about and gives examples of what complaints look like and how they are handled--often poorly-- in systems we are engulfed in daily through work, education, and social life. The last chapter prompts the readers to reflect on "the times you did complain, the times you didn't and what you learned along the way" through a complaint biography. This blog post acts as my own.

Christian Killjoy

2019 to 2021 was a difficult time for me. I went through a traumatic break-up that caused concern for the safety of me, my roommates, and my coworkers. That trauma made it difficult to graduate on time, and the Pandemic made it even worse. Times like these are when people of faith often seek comfort and wisdom from our religious leadership and faith-based communities. Seeking God did not relieve my stress like I'd hoped it would. A large part of that is because of the lack of support I received from my religious system during this time.

2019 to 2021, I served as a resident peer minister for my university's Lutheran Campus Ministry. I lived (and paid to live) in a church building and worked events such as worship, bible studies, and free community meals with my fellow roommates and coworkers. The ministry pastor was difficult for me and some other female peer ministers to be around. He was often aggressive, performed micro-aggressions against us in front of the public and our fellow peer ministers, and had no sense of boundaries to person space. Before the break-up, I had only voiced my complaints a few minor times. Because I was from California, he often brought up natural disasters like fires and earthquakes back home during meals. After a few times, I asked him to please stop bringing it up as it caused me stress. He did not stop. This was a sample of how I started feeling like personally victimized at this man's hands. This complaint was ignored even though it was difficult for me to "come out" as anxious during these types of conversations. It was only the start of something bad.

The break-up left me with many safety concerns. The ministry pastor insisted on keeping the doors to the building unlocked, and this was also encouraged outside of office hours when he was not in the building me and my roommates called home. I remember him knocking on my bedroom door in the middle of the night once just to tell me to leave the door unlocked until the morning when a worker came to do maintenance on the house. I tried to tell him about my safety concerns of my violent ex and he didn't take me seriously. That Thanksgiving, I arrived home with a roommate to find the house doors unlocked and ajar, giving concern that someone broke into the house. The pastor said he stopped by but locked the doors. This was not true, and I firmly believe he did this on purpose, knowing I did not feel safe at the time.

My roommate and I locked all the doors after searching the house for break-in evidence. We barricaded ourselves in the basement, afraid to sleep in our rooms due to the state of the house. This is when wrote out our complaint and sent it to the board. They seemed ignorant of the open office hours for the house and my personal situation. Even after holding meetings, they did not support me. They encouraged me to hold on until the pastor retired the following August. His micro-aggressions only got worse, and I felt my openness and complaints were met retaliation and no positive change. Ahmed talks about situations like this as "walls disguised as doors" that we run into instead of walking through. Every voiced complaint provided support to the pastor and nothing got better for me. Ahmed mentions that sometimes people's careers are threatened with complaints, and in my situation, it wasn't about my career, but the pastor's. Hope that he would retire soon left the board unwilling to make difficult calls in hope of patience and my own endurance of viciousness. My home was no longer my home, it was a prison.

When he did retire, it was hard to move forward as he continually found stupid reasons to show up at the ministry house and invade my time and space. In a board meeting after his retirement, several women and I came forward, airing our complaints in hopes that this would not happen again. After this, the board president emailed me offering me a letter of recommendation for future work to make up for what I suffered through; I did not take him up on his offer. I didn't want compensation; I wanted this to never happen again and for support when requested. I did not get that. When I left for doctoral school, I realized I needed to end all ties to the organization. The retired pastor was serving on the board committee and attending events meant for young adults and college students. All our complaints were met with nothing. Ahmed talks about complaints as making people choose between protecting people or protecting an institution, and it is hard to get support when the person you're complaining against is "beloved" or higher in power like the pastor was.

Complaints: Walls disguised as Doors

If I had realized all my complaints and concerns would add up to nothing, maybe I would have never complained. Maybe I wouldn't be alive today. Maybe I would have become homeless than continue to live in fear of that vile man. I wonder if God hears the complaints of me and the other victimized women. I wonder if He expects me to forgive this man for repetitive trauma. I wonder if He expects forgiveness to result in this man still being allowed positions of power that he maintains. And it makes me fear God... That He protects those He forgives instead of those who are expected to forgive. How can He be on both sides at once?

Multipurpose Complaints

Now, my complaints come in the forms or blog posts, articles, and conference presentations where I suggest ways forward in times of institutional precarity. At least if nobody listens to me, I get a line on my CV about it. Voiced complaints have led me nowhere, and I see similar worries for those in Ahmed's book who have been overlooked to support institutions and leaders with traditional power or a history of success in the profession. I think of how Ahmed had to leave the institution because of all this. And I see mirrors when I read of these stories. I encourage you to check out her new book and think about your own complain biography. Shall we dare stay silent in the midst of evil?

#IDMD #IDisappointMyDad #ChristianKilljoy #LutheranCampusMinistry #precarity #microaggressions #complaints